Robotics State Tournament

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On February 3, 2018, the Hendricken robotics team participated at the state robotics tournament at New England Tech’s automotive campus. Teams from all over Rhode Island came and competed from a place in the regional tournament. The tournament lasted from about 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. There was, however, no rest for the Hendricken robotics team as they continued to modify and improve the robot throughout the competition.

For the first few hours of the event, teams were putting the final touches on their robots and interviewing other teams they would partner with. The matches in the tournament performed by two teams of two different schools. Each round was scored by the number of tasks successfully performed by each robot. Therefore, if you have a good school on your team, you can easily win a round without doing much. After the first few hours came the opening ceremony where some of Rhode Island’s politicians came and made remarks about the importance of STEAM. (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) Then the longest part of the tournament, the matches. Each match took about five to seven minutes, which included changing the teams out and resetting the arena. There were about 40 matches, plus the semi-finals, finals, and breaks. Matches lasted from about 10 A.M. to 3 P.M.

Hendricken was in five matches. They won while paired with team 10847 in round 8. Then again with team 12047 in round 16. Then again with team 13181 in round 24. Yet again with team 9370 in round 29. Finally, they won their last round with team 10816 in round 36. These wins granted them second place in the first set of rounds. As second place, they choose another two team to pair with in the semi-finals and finals. Hendricken chose teams 9370 and 9219 as their partners for the last rounds. During the semi-finals, Hendricken was matched against team 6217. The first match of two matches in the semi-finals was barely won with a one-point lead, 107 to 106. They won the next round too, much to the shock of the team and myself. In the finals, Hendricken faced team 3032, Prout. They had won their matches with landslide victories. The finals rounds were not as victorious as the robot broke down for the rounds and barely functioned. After the two most awaited rounds of the tournament the decision was made. Prout would advance to the reginal tournament. Hendricken was not even the runner-up replacement.

They did however earn a trophy for their hard work. The team did make it to the final rounds despite making lengthy modifications throughout the tournaments and events and the unfortunate mechanical problems. Everyone on the team gave their time and effort into helping in any way possible, and that’s all that they could do. I hope that I can see them win the tournament next year, and I look forward to reporting for them once again.